A type of character, action, or situation that occurs over and over in literature; a pattern or example that occurs in literature and life. Example: The emperor himself was an archetype of what the modern world calls a constitutional monarch; he reigned, but did not govern.
Automator is an application developed by Apple for OS X that implements point-and-click (or drag and drop) creation of workflows for automating repetitive tasks into batches for quicker alteration, thus saving time and effort over human intervention to manually change each file separately.
When you've chosen a type of action you'll be taken to Automator's Library. This hosts all the Actions and variables available for you to add to your Automator workflow. Actions are categorised by type and, in some cases, by application. The categories are listed in the left most pane of the Library when the Actions tab is selected.